US and allied forces yesterday searched rugged Afghan terrain for fugitives Osama bin Laden and deposed Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar as tribal chiefs squabbled over the former Taliban stronghold, Kandahar.
Bin Laden was said to be personally leading about 1,000 men in the defense of his bomb-blasted mountain hideouts in eastern Afghanistan, anti-Taliban forces said yesterday.
Pakistan said it had moved helicopter gunships and troop reinforcements to its long border with Afghanistan to prevent fleeing Taliban or members of bin Laden's al-Qaeda network from sneaking into the country.
A team of UN peacekeeping experts was in Kabul yesterday to plan the deployment of a multinational security force in the capital to prevent the kind of bloodbaths that Afghanistan has witnessed in previous changeovers of power.
On Saturday, the UN World Food Programme started its biggest ever food distribution in the capital, handing out sacks of wheat to more than three-quarters of the war-ravaged city's population.
Anti-Taliban forces had pushed al-Qaeda fighters out of their bases in the cave-riddled Tora Bora heights and were attacking them in nearby forests, a spokesman said.
"Osama himself has taken command of the fighting," Mohammad Amin said from eastern Jalalabad city. "He, along with around 1,000 of his people, including some Taliban officials, have now dug themselves into the forests of Spin Ghar after we overran all their bases in Tora Bora."
There was no independent confirmation of Amin's account.
US warplanes have pounded al-Qaeda forces in the snow-streaked Tora Bora peaks for days in support of local Afghan forces pursuing bin Laden, prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks on the US that killed nearly 4,000.
The US launched strikes on Afghanistan on Oct. 7 to try to catch bin Laden, destroy his al-Qaeda network and punish the Taliban for giving them sanctuary in Afghanistan.
About 2,000 fighters loyal to the new Afghan leaders are combing Tora Bora's caves and tunnels near Jalalabad where bin Laden might be hiding.
"You could bomb day and night and it won't make a big difference," said local commander Hazrat Ali. "Soldiers have to go in there."
In Kandahar, squabbling Pashtun tribal chiefs yesterday were vying to control the former Taliban bastion and meeting in council to try to patch up old sore points and end a third decade of warfare that began with the Soviet invasion of 1979.
Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's designated interim prime minister has called for the meeting to try to resolve disputes over who should rule Kandahar and the border town of Spin Boldak.
WAITING GAME: The US has so far only offered a ‘best rate tariff,’ which officials assume is about 15 percent, the same as Japan, a person familiar with the matter said Taiwan and the US have completed “technical consultations” regarding tariffs and a finalized rate is expected to be released soon, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference yesterday, as a 90-day pause on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire today. The two countries have reached a “certain degree of consensus” on issues such as tariffs, nontariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, supply chain resilience and economic security, Lee said. They also discussed opportunities for cooperation, investment and procurement, she said. A joint statement is still being negotiated and would be released once the US government has made
Authorities have detained three former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TMSC, 台積電) employees on suspicion of compromising classified technology used in making 2-nanometer chips, the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. Prosecutors are holding a former TSMC engineer surnamed Chen (陳) and two recently sacked TSMC engineers, including one person surnamed Wu (吳) in detention with restricted communication, following an investigation launched on July 25, a statement said. The announcement came a day after Nikkei Asia reported on the technology theft in an exclusive story, saying TSMC had fired two workers for contravening data rules on advanced chipmaking technology. Two-nanometer wafers are the most
NEW GEAR: On top of the new Tien Kung IV air defense missiles, the military is expected to place orders for a new combat vehicle next year for delivery in 2028 Mass production of Tien Kung IV (Sky Bow IV) missiles is expected to start next year, with plans to order 122 pods, the Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) latest list of regulated military material showed. The document said that the armed forces would obtain 46 pods of the air defense missiles next year and 76 pods the year after that. The Tien Kung IV is designed to intercept cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to an altitude of 70km, compared with the 60km maximum altitude achieved by the Missile Segment Enhancement variant of PAC-3 systems. A defense source said yesterday that the number of
Taiwanese exports to the US are to be subject to a 20 percent tariff starting on Thursday next week, according to an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump yesterday. The 20 percent levy was the same as the tariffs imposed on Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh by Trump. It was higher than the tariffs imposed on Japan, South Korea and the EU (15 percent), as well as those on the Philippines (19 percent). A Taiwan official with knowledge of the matter said it is a "phased" tariff rate, and negotiations would continue. "Once negotiations conclude, Taiwan will obtain a better
RSS